When the Islamic State group took over the ancient city of Palmyra, it destroyed some of that city's ancient heritage, which dates to 2000 B.C. The ancient structures, art and architecture were examples of idolatry, IS said, and their destruction was called for by the Quran.

To most of the world, watching IS demolish the ancient palace of Nimrud and other parts of the UNESCO World Heritage Site was heartbreaking.

But if you find yourself in London this week, you can get a glimpse of one of the destroyed structures, the "Arch of Triumph," displayed in Trafalgar Square.

London Mayor Boris Johnson (center L) watches as a 5.5-meter (20ft) recreation of the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, is unveiled at Trafalgar Square in London, Britain, April 19, 2016.

The 11-ton arch was re-created by students at the Institute of Digital Archaeology. The team used photographs to map the arch in exquisite detail on a smaller scale and then rebuilt it life size using a 3-D printer.

The printer didn't reprint a pristine version of the arch; the model includes all the chips and age lines of the arch as it existed in 2015, making the model an exact replica of the one that was destroyed — flawed by nature and time, but not people.